Phil Jackson’s tenure with the Knicks has been a net positive. Whatever twisting pathway led him to select Kristaps Porzingis, the fact is he is a Knick and that is on Jackson. Robin Lopez has been better than expected. Arron Afflalo has been a solid pickup. The pieces on this team have almost universally been an upgrade over what preceded them.

Much of that splendid work was sabotaged by the first of his maneuvers (although even then, it is important to remember that Steve Kerr was Jackson’s first choice as coach, not Derek Fisher, and Kerr has done nothing to diminish Jackson’s gut choice there).

And even that can become a check mark on the positive side of Jackson’s ledger. Rather than stick with something that clearly wasn’t working, Jackson fired Fisher on Monday, capping a 10-game block of the season that included nine losses and turned the Knicks from one of the season’s feel-good stories into one of its rabbit-hole calamities.

“I think Derek is relieved to not have this on his shoulders,” Jackson said, making a play on words after announcing he’d “relieved” Fisher of his duties, and if Fisher was relieved, it’s difficult to find the word to describe what Knicks fans were feeling after a season and a half of observing Fisher’s curious rotation patterns, his curious-er remarks on where the team was and where it was headed, and more than a few strategic choices that left your head bleeding from having to scratch it so often.

Knicks president Phil Jackson speaks to reporters on Feb. 8, explaining the firing of Derek Fisher.AP

This is where it becomes tricky for Jackson, though. Because while it is easy to fire a coach — it’s the oldest ploy in pro sports, after all — that’s actually not quite the case here. Because there is an even easier choice out there for Jackson when he makes his inevitable next decision: Who will replace Kurt Rambis, the substitute teacher who will be biding time on the Knicks bench unless he happens to have a bottomless supply of Luke Walton’s Pixie Dust for Interim Coaches?

Of course it should be Tom Thibodeau.

Of course it should be Thibodeau, 58, who once worked here under Jeff Van Gundy, who ran Jackson’s old kingdom in Chicago the past five years with intensity and ferocity, who refused to make excuses when injuries compromised the Bulls’ championship blueprint, who shook gaggles of improbable wins out of the franchise before the very qualities that define him wound up wearing out his welcome.

Of course it should be Thibodeau because he is the most qualified person out there (unless you count Jackson himself, which Jackson himself does not, and should not, because of his age and his physical limitations). Because Thibodeau is far better suited than Mark Jackson for this challenge, because he has a deeper résumé than Luke Walton or Brian Shaw, the most attractive of Jackson’s Triangle Boys, because there isn’t a chance in the world that a Jackson marriage with John Calipari would ever work.

Of course it should be Thibodeau. A professional friend of Thibodeau’s who talks to him every week told me Monday: “He would kill for that job. There are some coaches who think the ‘New York basketball’ stuff is so much overblown hype, but Tom saw what it was like there. He experienced it. He wants in.”

“I think Tom Thibodeau is one of the better coaches in the NBA. Carmelo would be happy playing for him. It would be a good fit — the coach-player relationship,” Boeheim said, and having that strong relationship with a star player is key in building a winner.

Of course it should be him.

And yet if there was one takeaway from Jackson’s 20-minute media briefing Monday afternoon, it was this: There may be a better chance of Ken Reeves and Norman Dale coaching the Knicks than Tom Thibodeau. For the most part, discussing hypotheticals, Jackson gave similar versions of the same theme:

“It’s always good to have a relationship, but it’s not paramount. … At some point. I’ll have to have a relationship with someone who coaches this team. … The system of basketball is what’s important, and this happens to be the system we’re familiar with, but it’s not paramount. … Someone has to match the style of the way we do things … ”

But when Thibodeau’s name was floated, Jackson’s tone clicked to a place somewhere between testy and surly.

“I respect Tom as a coach, he’s a very good coach,” he said. “Have I said I’m soliciting coaches right now?”

If he isn’t yet, he ought to be soon. And if he’s true to his original vow — that he wants to restore the Knicks to the prominence they enjoyed when he was both their top antagonizer off the bench as a player in the ’70s and chief antagonist as an opposing coach in the ’90s — Thibodeau’s name has to be on his short list.

If all he cares about is glorifying the sacred triangle? If he isn’t able to figure out a compromise — a triangle-flavored offensive coach to balance Thibodeau’s defense-heavy skill set, perhaps? — then you have to wonder if winning is — let’s pick a word carefully …